She stared at him. At the haughty tilt of his chin. It was almost irresistible to show him how wrong he was. About her. About all women. This would be her gift to the female race…
“All right. On two conditions.”
His gaze narrowed.
“Double my salary and give me the title of CMO.”
“We don’t have a chief marketing officer.”
“Now we do.”
His eyes widened. Narrowed again. “Bailey…”
“We’re done then.” She turned away, every bit prepared to walk.
“Fine.” His curt agreement made her eyes widen, brought her swinging back around. “You can have both.”
She knew then that Jared Stone was in a great deal of trouble. And she was in the driver’s seat. But her euphoria didn’t last long as she nodded and made her way past Mary’s desk. There was no doubt she’d just made a deal with the devil. And when you did that, you paid for it.
BY THE TIME newly minted CMO Bailey threw herself into a cab twenty-four hours later, bound for San Jose Airport and a flight to France, the furor over Jared Stone’s manifesto had reached a fever pitch. Two feminist organizations had urged a full boycott of Stone Industries products in the wake of what they called his “irresponsible” and “repugnant” perspective on women. The female CEO of the largest clothing retailer in the country had commented on a national business news show, “It’s too bad Stone didn’t put this much thought into how he could balance out his board of directors, given that the valley is rife with female talent.”
In response, a leading men’s blog had declared Stone’s manifesto “genius,” calling the billionaire “a breath of fresh air for his honest assessment of this conflicted demographic.”
It was madness. Even now, the cabbie’s radio was blaring some inane talk show inviting men and women to call in with their opinions. She listened to one caller, a middle-aged male, praise Jared for his “balls” to take the bull by the horns and tell it like it was. Followed by a woman who called the previous caller “a caveman relic of bygone days.”
“Please,” Bailey begged, covering her eyes with the back of her hand, “turn it off. Turn the channel. Anything but him. I can’t take it anymore.”
The cabbie gave her an irritated glance through his grubby rearview mirror, as if he were fully on board with Jared’s perspective and she was the deluded one. But he switched the channel. Bailey fished her mobile out of her purse and dialed the only person she regularly informed of her whereabouts in case she was nabbed running through the park some night and became a statistic.
“Where are you?” her best friend and former Stanford roommate, Aria Kates, demanded. “I’ve been trying to get you ever since this Jared Stone thing broke.”
“On my way to the airport.” Bailey checked her lipstick with the mirror in her compact. “I’m going with him to France.”
“France? You didn’t quit? Bailey, that memo is outrageous.”
And designed for shock value. She shoved the mirror back in her purse, sat back against the worn, I’ve-seen-better-days seat, and pursed her lips. “He made me CMO.”
“I don’t care if he made you head of the Church of England…. He’s an ass!”
Bailey stared at the lineup of traffic in front of them. “I want this job, Aria. I know why he promoted me. I get that he wants me to be his female executive poster child. I, however, am going to take this and use it for what it’s worth. Get what I need, and get out.”
Just as she’d done her entire life: clawed on to whatever she could grasp and used her talent and raw determination to succeed. Even when people told her she’d never do it.
She heard Aria take a sip of what was undoubtedly a large, extra-hot latte with four sweeteners, then pause for effect. “They say he’s going to either conquer the world or take everyone down in a cloud of dust. You prepared for the ride?”
Bailey smiled her first real smile of the day. “Did I ever tell you why I came to work for him?’
“Because you’re infatuated with his brain, Bails. And, I suspect, not only his brain.”
Bailey frowned at the phone. “Exactly what does that mean?”
“I mean the night he hired you. He didn’t start talking to you because he detected brilliance in that smart head of yours. He saw your legs across the room, made a beeline for you, then you impressed him. You could almost see him turn off that part of his brain.” Her friend sighed. “He may drive you crazy, but I’ve seen the two of you together. It’s like watching someone stick the positive and negative ends of a battery together.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I can handle Jared Stone.”
“That statement makes me think you’re delusional…. Where in France, by the way?”
“Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the south.”
“Jealous. Okay, well, have fun and keep yourself out of trouble. If you can with him along…”
Doubtful, Bailey conceded, focusing on the twelve-hour flight ahead with the big bad wolf. Admittedly, she’d had a slight infatuation with Jared when she joined Stone Industries. But then he’d started acting like the arrogant jerk he was and begun holding her back at every turn, and after that it hadn’t taken much effort at all to put her attraction aside. Because she was only at Stone Industries for one thing: to plunder Jared Stone’s genius and move on.
The master plan hadn’t changed.
Traffic went relatively smoothly for a Friday afternoon. Bailey stepped out of the cab in front of the tiny terminal for private flights, ready to soak up the quiet luxury from here on in. Instead she was blindsided by a sea of light, crisscrossing her vision like dancing explosions of fire. Camera flashes, her brain registered. She was stumbling to find her balance, her pupils dilating against the white lights, when a strong hand gripped her arm. She looked up to see Jared’s impossibly handsome face set in grim lines.
“Good God,” she muttered, hanging on to him as his security detail forged a path through the scrum. “Do you regret your little joke now?”
“I regretted it the minute it was broadcast to the world,” he muttered, shielding her from a particularly zealous photographer. “But basking in regret isn’t my style.”
No, it wasn’t…although looking amazing in the face of adversity was. Because in the middle of the jostling reporters, acting like a human shield for her, he looked all-powerful and infinitely gorgeous. His fitted dark jeans molded lean, powerful legs, topped by a cobalt-blue sweater that made his piercing blue eyes glitter in the late afternoon sun. And then there was his slicked-back dark hair he looked like he’d raked his hands through a million times that gave him a rebellious look.
When you tossed in the pirate-like scar twisting his upper lip, you ended up with a photo that would undoubtedly make front page news.
A photographer eluded Jared’s two bodyguards, stepped in front of them and stuck a microphone in Bailey’s face. “Kay Harris called you a figurehead this morning on her talk show. Any comment?”
One hundred percent true. Bailey gave the reporter an annoyed look as Jared started to push her forward. She leaned back against his arm, stood her ground and ignored his warning look. “I think,” she stated, speaking to the cameras that had swung to her, “Mr. Stone made an error in judgment he apologized for earlier today and that’s the end of the matter.” She waved her hand at the man at her